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I f you want to deploy a new technology it ’ s best to think of a pain point you want to solve or a business outcome you want to achieve and work backwards ,” advises Wael Elrifai , VP for solution engineering , Big Data , analytics & IoT at Hitachi Vantara .
He ’ s well-equipped to offer this guidance ; Hitachi Group has been revolutionising industries across the globe for over a century . In fact , Elrifai contends that no other company has such a trusted trackrecord in both information technology ( IT ) and operations technology ( OT ). “ Our competitors in the industry tend to be either IT companies or OT companies but what makes us unique is that we have in-depth experience with technologies like big data , artificial intelligence and machine learning as well as in specific verticals ,” he says .
Now applying its unique skills to the world of the Internet of Things ( IoT ), the group has created Hitachi Vantara , a subsidiary which aims to unify the business ’ efforts in IT , OT and IoT . Bringing together three different firms – Pentaho , Hitachi Insight Group and Hitachi Data Centres – 2017 marked the genesis of the California subsidiary , and it ’ s been on an upward ascent ever since . “ I ’ m involved in solution engineering whereby we speak with companies who may not necessarily know how to attack a problem ; they may think that big data or artificial intelligence can help but they may not know how to approach it ,” explains Elrifai .
JUNE 2019